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Bashir School Denies Connection to Bombers
Dessy Sagita | July 19, 2009

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An Islamic boarding school in Central Java founded by radical Islamic cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, the reputed leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terrorist group, denied on Sunday that three of its graduates had carried out the terrorist suicide bombings in Jakarta on Friday.

“We strongly deny that statement. It is a baseless accusation and absolutely defamation,” Muhammad Soleh Ibrahim, spokesman for the Al-Mukmin pesantren near the city of Solo, told the Jakarta Globe.

Abdurrahman Assegaf, head of the conservative Indonesian Islamic Community Movement (GUII), told local television stations on Saturday that the two suicide bombers and suspected accomplice in Friday’s attacks at the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in South Jakarta had graduated from the school, in the village of Ngruki. He identified them as Nur Hadi, Nur Sahid, and Nur Hasbi.

Investigators said Sunday they had identified the body of only one of the bombers. They released just his initial, N.

Soleh said the school would sue Assegaf for defamation unless he publicly apologized.

"I have checked our student record since 1987 and none of them are listed as our students,” Soleh said. “How did Assegaf come up with this idea anyway? He didn’t even check with us before making that baseless statement.”

Terrorism analysts have said Al-Mukmin is a recruiting ground for JI, and two of its most infamous students were Ali Ghufron and his younger brother Amrozi, two of the three Bali bombers who were executed in November 2008.

A former teacher at Al-Mukmin, Abdurahim bin Toyib, alias Abu Husna, was sentenced to nine years in prison in February for aiding and abetting JI military commander Abu Dujana, who was eventually captured in 2007.

Soleh said the Ngruki school, as it’s commonly called, cannot take any responsibility for any of its former students’ actions.

“We have done our best to make them the best Muslims they can be. What they do after they left is not out business anymore,” he said.

JI is blamed for multiple terrorist bombings across Indonesia dating back to 2000 that have killed hundreds of people. Bashir, accused of being JI’s one-time spiritual leader, was convicted and sentenced to prison in 2005 for terrorist-related activities related to the 2002 Bali bombings but served just more than two years because prosecutors failed to prove he organized the attacks that killed 202 people.

Bashir has always denied that JI exists.